The conversion of sunlight into electrical power by photovoltaic cells provides a share of the world's renewable energy. However, widespread use of photovoltaic cells to generate electricity has been limited by issues such as the relatively high cost of manufacturing and installing photovoltaic cells as well as the relatively low efficiency of photovoltaic cells.
Traditional photovoltaic electric generation systems require the installation of numerous photovoltaic modules, cabling, junction boxes, and other circuitry to connect the photovoltaic modules in series and parallel to produce a desired voltage and current output. Installing the numerous photovoltaic modules and associated cabling is a time-consuming and expensive process. Furthermore, the photovoltaic modules of these traditional systems have fixed sizes and electrical characteristics, which impedes their ability to meet system design requirements. For example, such photovoltaic modules cannot be sized to accommodate roof obstructions.